July 5, 2009

Here in the United States, we just celebrated Independence Day, the 4th of July. And yet, we are in uncertain times – financially, politically and most of all, in terms of our civil liberties. There is a growing feeling in America that our liberties are expendable in the pursuit of solutions to problems like the economic crisis and providing health care just as they were (and are) concerning the war on terror.

But something’s changed. Whereas past administrations were content to keep the status quo on health care and just create bloated budgets to pay for pet projects for lobbyists, we now have a government that seizes businesses and appoints czars that are not elected and are only accountable to the government that created them.

What I have just written is not new. It has been voiced by others…independents, conservatives, libertarians and others.

So what does any of this have to do with size acceptance, you might ask?

What if our government decides to create a Weight Loss Czar? Oh, they’d probably make the title sound less overbearing, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility. Or if/when they create socialized medicine, what if people who are above a certain BMI aren’t allowed certain treatments unless they lose weight? If you think it can’t happen, ask someone who lives in the United Kingdom or elsewhere. They’ll set you straight on that, and quickly.

[07-31-09 Update: Please stop sending comments like “Life is so great under NHS here in the UK, what’s wrong with you Americans?” I have already stated this is not an “us vs. them” blog entry. I’m no longer accepting those comments, so don’t try.

Please read the entire entry! This is about alerting people of all sizes to what is going on and being planned for the UNITED STATES and making preparations for those matters in advance. If you’re happy with what you’re getting in the UK, that’s great!]

Right now, fat people are mostly not protected under U.S. law, and as a result, we know the discrimination that happens every day. As bad as that is, it could get infinitely worse in the very near future.

We need to wake up, and we need to re-claim our voice. We need to get laws passed that add “size (weight and height)” to the current protections. It will take a lot of effort and it won’t happen immediately, so we need to get started.

And if you don’t live in the U.S., don’t think you’re excluded. What happens in the U.S. tends to find its way to other parts of the world, sometimes very quickly…

Some people will accuse me of being alarmist. Some people will say I’m being judgmental of a new President, that I’m one of those bitter, conservative Republicans who won’t find anything right with President Obama.

To that, I answer: I’m not a Republican (or a Democrat), and I voted for President Obama.

But the change he has unleashed is not what I was led to believe it would be — and the same could well be true of health care. This has the potential to lead to many deaths through malpractice/incompetence and denial of service. If so, it would be based on fear and an inherent prejudice that exists in the current medical establishment, fear and discrimination taught in medical school. Where “Do No Harm” takes a back seat to “do whatever we can to get rid of fat and line our pockets at the same time.”

And in fairness, not all doctors feel like that. But doctors have to follow the rules, and the rules could change…radically. And that’s what concerns me, and I think it concerns many doctors as well.

So call me alarmist, but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong. We’re in uncertain times, and it’s time to get ready.

This whole blog entry is about a “call to arms” to be prepared. There are some warning signs in what President Obama has already said concerning “obesity” in his presidential campaign. And should some of those concerns translate into restrictive/harmful anti-obesity rules or even legislation in what appear to be the coming changes to the healthcare system, then we — the so-called Size Acceptance Movement — would do well to have preparations made and plans in place.

The best defense we have is to plan now — a good offense, if you will. If we wait till the changes have been made, we will have lost opportunity to do anything about it. Right now in the U.S., we continue to enjoy the freedom to organize, peacefully dissent and voice our concerns to our elected officials. We need to avail ourselves of these freedoms and work to change the anti-discrimination laws to include “size (weight and height).” That is one step. The other step is to communicate with our representative officials concerning existing discrimination problems in healthcare.

I have spent the last 12 years working and fighting, alongside many brave and wonderful people of all sizes and all political, religious and sexual persuasions. We have fought and continue to fight the common foes of ignorance and those who would profit from others’ ignorance or fear to act.

This is not some lame “I hate socialized medicine and all countries that practice it suck” blog entry. This is me, Allen Steadham, the Founder and Director of ISAA, and based upon my experience and what I see happening on multiple fronts, I see cause for concern.

I hope I have made things clear. I will write more in the weeks and months to come. Thanks.

March 10, 2009

Once upon a time, Without Measure (the WOM in PODWOM) was a popular ISAA e-zine, and one of the pages in WOM’s BBTeenz section was called “From Experience.” Thanks to a brilliant suggestion from my wife, now we’re transitioning that section from the e-zine to the podcast. Submissions requested (details in the podcast)!

January 7, 2009

This is something I have written after I saw Oprah on TV selling her style of HAES to the world:

I am glad to see that 2009 is the year of healthy living, the year to rediscover our bodies and our self worth, and learn to be active and lead a healthy life style.

This is all good, if it were not for the never ending message to lose weight and measure our achievement by the number of pounds lost or the our new thinner selves.

Glamorizing thinness is harmful, it has not only failed for decades, but obesity is on the rise due to the change in metabolism and eating disorders these methods cause.

This is the reason why the promoters of weight loss are borrowing our messages of size acceptance and health at every size, to sell their diets and keep women and teens especially, in the vicious circle of yo yo dieting and body loathing.

My idea of caring and loving my body is unconditional, it has no strings attached. I will love and care for my health no matter what weight i am at or if i lose pounds or inches as a result of a healthy life style or not.

I eat healthy and move my body for health and only for health, not to lose pounds or look thinner.

My self worth is not measured by the number on the scale or a dress size, I am who I am at any size.

I am worthy of respect love and dignity now as I am, it should not be less worthy when fat and more worthy when thin.

My self worth is not based on the scale or the tape measure, these statistics are part of me but not the whole of me, and when they fluctuate they do not affect who i am as a human being.

Caring for my health is a pleasurable duty I have towards my best friend, my child and the home of my soul my beautiful body.

Without it, I would not be able to love , feel pleasure, walk, run, laugh and dance, be happy or sad , work and play, be creative , be productive, be a lover and a friend, be a mother, a father or a child, without this body I do not exist.

January 6, 2009

Well, no sooner do I put my last post online than I get diagnosed with an abdominal hernia (in addition to everything else I told you about). I had surgery to have the hernia repaired on New Year’s Eve. According to my doctor, the surgery went flawlessly and I’m on the road to recovery. My wife and kids even helped me bring in the New Year — via my cell phone, and I was very gratified for that (almost teary-eyed, actually).

I’ve been spending most of the time on my rear end, some of it bored, some of it entertained, most of it online (I am such a geek). And in the last 24 hours, I honed my geekness into a new PODWOM podcast!

It’s not perfect but it’s not bad, either, and it does cover it’s topic very well. You can even listen to it here!

February 2, 2008

AUSTIN, TX – The International Size Acceptance Association (ISAA) opposes and condemns Mississippi House Bill 282, proposed by Representative W. T. Mayhall, Jr. of District 40, which is “an act to prohibit certain food establishments from serving food to any person who is obese.” In the unlikely possibility that this legislation actually passes, it would allow restaurants to refuse service to anyone with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30 or more. The bill does not specify how restaurants should check for BMI but it does state that “the State Department of Health shall monitor the food establishments to which this section applies for compliance with the provisions of this section, and may revoke the permit of any food establishment that repeatedly violates the provisions of this section.”

“This bill is wholesale legalized segregation based on weight,” said ISAA Founder and Director Allen Steadham. “It tells restaurants to choke their own business while discriminating against potential patrons. It is obscene and shows to what extent the obsession over obesity has reached. This clearly steps over a line and should be called for what it is.”

ISAA recommends that the public contact the Mississippi legislature and urge them to oppose this bill and Representative Mayhall to urge him to withdraw this bill.

ISAA strongly suggests that the public exercise courtesy when contacting Representative Mayhall and the Mississippi legislature.

ISAA was created in 1997 with the mission to is to promote size acceptance and fight weight-based discrimination throughout the world by means of advocacy and visible, lawful actions. ISAA has a philosophy of self-respect, maintainable fitness and encourages healthy food choices.

Daphne, the Super-Duper-Sized Woman, has sat through many CME (Continuing Medical Education) courses in the patient rooms of her various doctors through the years and has heard that many other fat people of all varieties of size have also sat through similar lectures. So, since the many doctors think it very important to spend countless minutes each appointment to teach the following lessons for a fat person’s own good and because most of the doctors seem to think that fat people have not paid attention, not realized the seriousness of their issues with us, or maybe are unable to listen (probably due to too much fat clogging our ears,) Daphne, the SDSW, thought it would be helpful to write out a list of lecture notes so that all will know whether or not we have listened, understood, and considered these words of supposed wisdom and truth on the issue of our weight, specifically the issue of our large supply of adipose tissue.

The following list will be in no particular order of importance. It will simply list lecture points. No comment on these points will be made at this time. This listing does not mean any agreement with the points or any disagreement with the points. Furthermore, these lecture notes do not mean the method of speaking to the fat patient is respectful or warranted. It is simply making sure the doctors know we have heard them properly… and perhaps have now passed this part of the course finally and can move on to more helpful aspects of our doctor visits. Well, Daphne, the SDSW, can dream, can’t she?!

So, without further ado, here are Daphne’s notes from her doctors’ lecture series entitled “Morbid Obesity for Morons, Specifically You (the Super-Duper-Sized Woman:”

1)My weight is killing me, and my death is to be soon… even within the next five years (endlessly renewable as five year allotments pass.)

2)I am in denial by refusing to go into hospice by thinking I am not near death when it is obvious I am dying soon due to being so very fat.

3)I lie continuously and consistently about what I do and don’t eat.

4)I obviously do overeat but refuse to admit it.

5)Either I am a pathological liar about food and weight issues, or I am delusional or both.

6)Maybe I am unaware of portion sizes, caloric values, the glycemic index, or other fine points of nutrition.

7)I am apparently ignorant of the research and proof (and I am instructed to go read up on it if I am unconvinced) of how my weight is killing me and need to read more research on it since I am very determined to stay so huge.

8 )I have never considered or even thought about the possibility of losing weight.

9)I am incredibly lazy and either sit around or lie around all day, refusing to move. But, some doctors do add that if they had even an extra 100 pounds on them, they wouldn’t want to do anything either.

10)I need less self-acceptance and more losing weight.

11)A 1000 or even less calorie diet is healthy for me because the alternative is death.

12)I need the gastric bypass surgery to make all my troubles go away. In fact, each doctor knows several people who have lost down to their normal weight and have no need for their former medicines. Some patients have even been cured of diabetes this way.

13)Obviously I have no self-control or will power, so the only hope is the gastric bypass.

14)It is my fault that none of the medical equipment, none of the doors, and none of the facilities are accessible or accurate for me because of my size, but I am to struggle through the agonizing pain physically and emotionally as well as paying the many fees for the services that don’t fit me and/or do not help me. After all I need the exercise anyway.

15)Doctors hate seeing their patients, specifically me, killing themselves, but this is a part of the job, alas.

16)Only I can choose what I do or don’t put into my mouth. If I would choose to eat less, I would lose weight.

17)I need to exercise and move about or die.

18)Anything I say or do that does not support the theory that my weight is killing me and is caused by my deliberate and willful choices is either fabricated or an obvious misinterpretation of whatever happened.

19)I am too stubborn about medicines and the side effects. All medicines have side effects. But if I choose not to take a medicine, a cholesterol lowering medicine for example because it caused jaundice in me, then that is my choice. However, I should be aware that my choice is killing me. And, what is the point of taking a fasting lipids blood test if I am not going to be taking any medicines anyway?

20)Since I am in a lot of pain, I need pain medicine not a firm diagnosis of what exactly is going wrong to cause the pain since I have already been told that my pains are caused by my huge amount of adipose tissue crushing and killing me.

21)My too tight control of my diabetes is hindering my losing weight.

22)Every condition is caused by and exacerbated by my fatness.

23)I need psychiatric help because I am so huge and determined to stay that way.

24)No professional medical person – nurse, OT, PT, practical nurse, nutritionist, dietician, or social worker who comes to my home and sees my conditions here has a true picture of how I eat or not eat and, hence, have all been brainwashed by me to lie for me concerning these matters.

Other entries in the continuing adventures of the Super-Duper-Sized Woman can be found here:

July 27, 2007

The newest tidbits of expertise on obesity from one segment of the medical world published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) (vol 357, 370-379, 2007) are, not surprisingly, painfully flawed and guilty of the same underlying prejudice against fat people that plagues the medical community in general. If you break down their findings, two dangerous messages come across loud and clear:

1. Being around fat people will increase your chances of getting fat, so you better not hang out with fat people; and
2. If you’re fat, you’re going to lose all your friends if you don’t lose weight, so you better get thin as soon as possible!

Even the Chicago Sun-Times had a problem with the new research in this article. They concluded that the NEJM research “may also contribute to prejudice against overweight people.” I agree.

The new research hangs on that blemish of science, the Body Mass Index (BMI), which has never been an indicator of health and the research also makes sweeping generalizations about social networking influencing eating habits.

Common sense always provides answers where research fails, because research can be influenced by the researchers’ assumptions and prejudices.

Common sense says your friends don’t make choices for you. You decide what what you want to do with your life, even if you decide to agree to what your friends suggest you do. The assumption the medical community wants you to make is that all fat people make poor food choices and overeat with abandon, so you’d better get away from their social influence or by gum, they’ll make you lazy, ugly and stupid, too!

It’s a silly assumption but too many doctors and medical professionals make leaps of logic like that every day.

Common sense says everyone is an individual and individuals make individual choices. It may be hard for some people to understand but people of all shapes and sizes can be fit, eat healthy and be productive and active members of society. By the same reasoning, people of ALL shapes and sizes (including thin ones) can also lack fitness, have un-healthy habits and not be productive and active members of society. For some reason, some people don’t like to hear that — but it’s the truth.

Common sense says that you choose your friends based on whether they’re good friends or not.

There’s another term for choosing your friends based on appearance…it’s called “discrimination.”